Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Randi Backs Out of Challenge with Homeopath George Vithoulkas

"A long tussle concerning the validity of Homeopathy between the world`s most famous homeopath and probably the world`s most well known `quackbuster` appears to have come to head in December 2008 after 5 years of to-ing and fro-ing...."

11 comments:

I wish the media would take a deeper look before they bring in Randi as their master skeptic. If what George Vithoulkas has written on his page is true, then Randi is down right dishonest! There are no excuses for such behaviour.

From the link: "All seemed to be going well when in August 2006, Vithoulkas received a signed agreement from Randi in which he stated that he was satisfied with the suggested protocol."

I would like to see a copy of that signed agreement.

From the link: "In October 2008, one month after the meeting, they received the following communication from Randi:

"Forget all previous correspondence exchanged on the subject..."

I would like to see a copy of that communication as well.

I really, really hope George Vithoulkas kept all paperwork and correspondences safe. If he did, it should be a simple matter to prove once and for all how Randi really is. If this whole thing ends up boiling down to his word vs Randi I will be very disappointed.

"I overstated my case for doubting the reality of dog ESP based on the small amount of data I obtained. It was rash and improper of me to do so."

"Viewing the entire tape, we see that the dog responded to every car that drove by, and to every person who walked by." This is simply not true, and Randi now admits that he has never seen the tape.

Randi who claims mediums use cold reading fails to do it infront of a tv studio audience:

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org.uk/articles/keen/randi.htm

"I should first note that Mr. Randi may consider himself fortunate on at least three counts: (1) The edited version omitted his first futile but extended attempts at cold reading which was so unsuccessful that the embarrassed floor manager had to announce a technical fault and stop the show."

Michael Prescott discusses rampant inaccuracy in a book by a Randi.

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/exam/Prescott_Randi.htm

"Randi also directly quotes Dr Hebard as calling some of Targ and Puthoff's claims 'lies'. Dr Hebard was very annoyed by this claim since, as he explained to me, Randi had tried to get him to make this charge and he had refused. Dr Hebard later signed a statement to this effect for me."

There is also a video which can be found by searching on the internet of Randi failing to use slight of hand to bend a key in the manner he claims psychics do it.

I was reading the detailed description on Dr. Vithoulkas' website and when I tried to go to the second page, the site was suddenly down. Given the rabid nature of James Randi's followers, one wonders if it was hacked with something like a denial of service attack.

Youtube has suspended the James Randi Educational Foundation channel. Randi still managed to post a video response on Youtube to the ban. I guess he isn't being suppressed as effectively as he would have us believe.

Randi is back up you youtube. That said, look at Randi's responses and rebuttals on his site. He's one of the few honest men out there not getting rich or famous off of the psi BS posted here and on skepticalinvestigations.org

Can we stick to the issues, please. It is not helpful to imply bad character of anyone. These can degenerate into attacks ad hominem rather quickly.

Randi is a valuable member of society. He is very careful and is right about things quite often. He can be wrong, too. I think he may be wrong WRT parapsychology. But I don't feel the need to smear the man's reputation just because of a few misjudgements.

If I were to conduct an experiment about psi, I'd take seriously any suggestions that Randi would make as to how the experiment should be set up. No, he's not the only one I'd ask, but I trust his experience.